Misunderstanding Of Conflict

Conflict has been a part of society as far as human society itself has existed. It can arise from anything as simple as a misunderstanding to something as complex as the scarcity and distribution of resources. These small-scale problems, which often involve only two people, begin to interconnect and build on top of each other with time. Once a small problem begins to evolve, it does not take long before the whole society starts to notice it and begins to question it. Eventually, at least two sides of the argument are formed. Political strategies are created and implemented by each side in order to result victorious from the conflict. Not long after they begin reviewing the full effects of the political strategies they have used, the two parties …show more content…
The main reason behind my thoughts is that most of the prices of war are bound to be there regardless of who wins them while the majority of the backlashes of war are irreversible. Land, resources and peace could be distributed fairly without the need for war, whereas death is irreversible and destruction only causes poverty and eventually more death. This leads me to believe that no matter what, we should not think of war as the ethically right thing to do, but as just the opposite. Another ethical theory is utilitarianism in which one decides whether something is ethically right or wrong depending on the utility of the action. The word utility was described as “The aggregate pleasure after deducting suffering of all involved in the action” by the founder of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham. Using this theory one can again, just like in consequentialism, weigh the pros and the cons of war, only this time look at them from a point of view that adds emotions to the equation. The basic question to answer for this theory would be, is the price of the action worth the sacrifices that had to be made to obtain it? Or in context, is temporary land and resources worth the countless lives and agonizing suffering of …show more content…
In this theory, an ethically correct answer is measured by whether or not that action was commanded by a god. This theory has been the source of many wars including, but not exclusive to the wars the U.S. fought while expanding the colonies’ territories, the crusades, and many other wars that involve the many religions of the world. There are two main reasons why this theory alone creates so much war. The first is the amount of religions in existence, which in some cases praise different gods, and sometimes one god says to do something one way and another god says to do it the opposite way, conflicts rise like wildfire. The second and most important reason is that the commands of a god can easily be interpreted or misinterpreted in many different forms to reinforce one’s actions. The real conflict when everyone follows this theory is when both of these reasons combine. That is to say, people follow different gods and those who do follow the same god interpret the commands differently. Following the divine theory to approve or disapprove of war is not the best way to go, simply due to the sad fact that everyone will bend and focus the commands of their god to either reinforce the usefulness of war or to remind the rest of us that war was never intended to be used by us in the first place. Whether wars are ethically correct or not boils down to which ethical theory you live your